My girlfriend does occasionally find use for my Xbox 360 even though the only reason she’ll do so is to browse the queue on Netflix or play a little Tetris. She’s familiar enough with it that she also understands the concept of the avatar. For a long track of time, my avatar was dressed like the infamous Boba Fett. After a while, though, I got tired of looking at his Mandalorian mug and opted to change back to my normal outfit — which is also my normal outfit in the real world: jeans, sneakers, a plain black hooded sweatshirt, and a Cleveland Indians hat.
Aside from the wicked scar cutting across his eye, he looks just like me. The similarities between this slightly Gumby-like character and the man sitting next to her on the couch left my girlfriend a little unsettled. It was then that I realized that there’s something going on with the whole concept of the “virtual identity.” Your digital gaming personality is now much more than a mere three initials on an arcade game’s high score list. Items including how you dress your avatar, the types of games you play, and the ways in which you play them go a long way to telling people, even people in the real world, how you think about yourself.
The most feared avatar in the galaxy.
How do you outfit your avatar? If you are you like me, you dress it in a manner similar to how you dress yourself when you’re out in the world. Perhaps you are a little bit more eccentric. One of my friends wears a trench coat, though I’ve never seen him wear one in real life. Another is uncharacteristically dressed in steampunk gear. Still others dress like characters from games. My friends list is populated with COGS from Gears of War, space marines from Mass Effect, a prince from Fable, and even a highly disturbing Sonic the Hedgehog.
With all the possibilities for expression through the avatar editor, why would some people, myself sometimes included, choose simply to render a realistic version of themselves? Perhaps they’re casual gamers who don’t identify that deeply with spacesuits and lightsabers. Myself, sometimes I just grow tired of playing dress-up. Others look upon their avatar as yet another manner in which to show off their gaming accomplishments. One friend is recreating Jorge’s armor from Halo: Reach while another is in full Sonic regalia. He might look ridiculous, but it lets you know he’s damn good at Sonic.
It looks disturbingly like this.
Your avatar's swag is only one way in which you represent yourself online, however. I argued in my previous article that memories and accomplishments you experience in the gaming world are just as valuable as those in the real world. These virtual feats are made even more poignant because you can share them with a multitude of other gamers. So while a gamer can look at their PS3 trophies or Xbox 360 achievements as journals of their virtual triumphs, they can also serve as an ersatz résumé.
You claim to be an expert on RPGs, and you can prove it by showcasing your full achievement lists for Oblivion or Fallout 3. A friend of mine recently joined Xbox Live, and the first game he played was Gears of War 2. I hope that after he got a look at my profile, he got the impression that I’m good at Gears 2 — because I am. However, this doesn’t quite end with the Dashboard or PSN Home. Shooters like Halo: Reach offer unprecedented statistical analysis, both through the game’s menus and the developer’s website.
Is this something we want?
I would be remiss if I did not speculate on what avenues this concept might find itself travelling down over the next few years. The answer is simple: high levels of integration. We’re already beginning to see signs of it. You can send tweets and update your Facebook status from your Xbox 360. I use my Android phone to track my friends and I on Xbox Live, though at this point it’s slightly unreliable. You can find apps on Facebook that allow you to update your status when you unlock achievements or trophies. The new Windows phone integrates with Xbox Live as well.
Of course this is all terribly convenient, but what does it mean for us as people? It seems likely that in the future, we’ll no longer be relegated to anonymous arcade initials or gamer cards on the Xbox 360. Imagine a social networking site a la Facebook or Twitter where your gamertag and your legal name share equal billing on the title page of your profile. Your gaming accomplishments and your college degree go in the same section.
There might even be an intermingling of the friends you’ve met online and the friends you’ve made in real life. On the other side of the spectrum, this might mean a dramatic loss of anonymity while gaming. While some of us might not be adverse to this, some gamers with less-than-ethical gaming methods or slightly offensive linguistic habits might object to the integration of their digital personas and their real identities. At this point it might be too early to speculate about the possible implications of the meshing of our different social lives, but there’s one thing we know for sure: it’s coming.
Please, no.
What are your thoughts on the development of online identities?
Do you prefer realism, or are you a bit more off the wall?
Would you rather your digital identity remain entirely separate from your real one?
Let me know in the comments!